Keating - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Céitinn
Meaning: Norman, possibly “sharp, keen”
Traditional stronghold: Wexford, Tipperary
Seathrún Céitinn (Geoffrey Keating) wrote the great history of Ireland.
Pronunciation: KEE-ting; Irish Céitinn: KAY-tchin
History of the Keating name
The Keatings are of Cambro-Norman origin, arriving from Wales in the earliest wave of the invasion and settling first in south Wexford before spreading through Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary. The name, gaelicised Céitinn, is thought to derive from a Welsh or Old English personal name. Like the Tobins and Roches the Keatings became fully absorbed into Gaelic Ireland, and the name's greatest bearer wrote in Irish: Seathrún Céitinn, Geoffrey Keating of Tipperary, whose Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (c. 1634) was the first narrative history of Ireland in the Irish language and shaped Irish self-understanding for centuries. The name remains strongest in the south-east and Tipperary.
Variants: Céitinn · Keatinge · Keeting
Famous bearers of the name
- Geoffrey Keating - Seathrún Céitinn, priest-historian whose Foras Feasa ar Éirinn became the classic Irish-language history of Ireland.
- Seán Keating - Limerick-born painter of the revolutionary generation, famed for Men of the South.
- Ronan Keating - Dublin singer who fronted Boyzone before a long solo career.
- Paul Keating - Prime Minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, of Irish Catholic descent.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · O'Brien · Ryan · Doyle · Kennedy · Kavanagh · Carroll · Cullen